“Wrong thing to do,” she shouted angrily. This time her feet went on automatic. She ran alongside him, then swung her leg in front of him and struck the near side of the ball. It popped away from him.
Her foot shot out again. He tripped and fell flat on his back.
She picked up the ball and sauntered back to him, then held out her hand to help him up.
“You don’t have to smile so big,” he said with a matching grin. He took her hand. His felt warm and strong.
She couldn’t help but smile. No wonder they put her on the team so quickly. Her feet had talent. She was a master.
“Say, what’s your name?” she asked as he stood.
He looked at her oddly but didn’t let go of her hand. “Derek,” he answered, and he seemed hurt. “You’re teasing me, right?”
She didn’t know his name, but suddenly there was no doubt in her mind that they had known each other before she lost her memories.
“Of course, I’m teasing,” she lied, and ran out to the field.
CHAPTER FIVE
“¡PUENTA!” JIMENA SHOUTED, and dove for the ball. Her defenders cleared away and Jimena made another save. She punted the ball, and it went flying past midfield.
“Got it!” Tianna cried out. She threw out her arms and hit the ball with her forehead. It shot at the goal. The keeper tried to grab the ball, but it hit the net.
Jimena screamed, “Gooooaaaalll!”
Serena cupped her hands around her mouth and joined in from the sidelines. “Way to go, Tianna!” Then she threw her hands over her head and gave a loud, “Woo-hoo!”
Tianna smiled at Michael, standing next to Serena and Derek.
“That was awesome!” Vanessa ran to Tianna and hugged her. “You’re the best striker I’ve ever seen.” She got a funny look on her face. Tianna wondered if she felt as if she was betraying Catty by saying that.
“Thanks.” Tianna turned back as the goalkeeper threw the ball in a javelin pass. It hit her hard in the face.
“You did that on purpose,” Vanessa yelled at the goalkeeper.
“Sorry,” the girl called back. “It was an accident.”
“I know you better than that, Michelle,” Vanessa answered angrily. “You’ve done things like this before.”
Tianna grabbed her nose and sat down on the grass, then leaned back and pinched hard, trying to stop the flow of blood. Her eyes teared; she felt sharp pain in her head.
Without warning a memory streaked across her mind, as if the impact of the ball had loosened something inside her skull. Someone dangerous wanted to destroy her, and it wasn’t some ordinary pervert or stalker. The two guys who had been chasing her had feral eyes that glowed like a cat’s in the dark. They also had mysterious powers of mind control.
“Tianna, are you all right?” Vanessa leaned over her.
She didn’t answer. She was vaguely aware of the pounding feet of her teammates, running up to her, but she studied the memory. No wonder the police didn’t believe her. She could barely believe it herself. Yet she knew it was true. She must have told the officers that her attackers had tried to hypnotize her with their glowing yellow eyes. She shuddered. How was that possible? She concentrated, but her mind gave her no more.
Vanessa knelt beside her. “Do you think she broke your nose?”
Tianna shook her head and looked at the blood on her hands.
“Oh, no, what have I done?” Michelle asked with mock sincerity. “I hope you don’t have to sit out the game, Tianna.”
“Not a chance,” Tianna answered.
“That’s not very nice, Michelle,” Vanessa shot back.
“Especially since you did it on purpose,” Jimena added.
“What do you mean?” Michelle asked innocently. “I’m just worried about her. Do you think I want you to lose your best player? I hate a game when there’s no competition.”
“Somebody get me a towel,” Tianna said. “I want my penalty shot.”
“No way.” Michelle smirked and pulled her dark, curly hair away from her face. “I’m still in the game, and no one’s called a foul.”
“Tianna should get a free kick.” Vanessa glanced over her head and waved for the referee.
“She got in my way,” Michelle argued back. “I was only trying to get the ball down to midfield for the kickoff. Besides, even if the referee called a foul, which she didn’t, you’re not going to get another shot past me.”
The referee walked over to them. “What is it?”
“Michelle threw the ball at Tianna on purpose,” Vanessa said.
Michelle folded her arms across her chest. “She got in the way.”
The referee looked at Michelle and shook her head. “I didn’t see it,” the referee said to Vanessa, then asked Tianna, “Can you still play?”
“Sure.” Tianna nodded.
The referee didn’t look convinced. “Your nose has to stop bleeding before I can let you back in the game.”
“I’m fine.” Tianna pinched her nose and glared at Michelle. “Nothing’s going to keep me from playing.”
“I’ll get a towel.” Vanessa hurried away.
The referee picked up the ball and started back to midfield as the other girls drifted back to their positions.
Michelle waited until everyone was far enough away, then she leaned over Tianna. “Decca High hasn’t lost a game all season,” she said. “And we’re not going to start with getting beaten by a loser team like La Brea High. It’s not even fair that they let you play.”
“What are you trying to say?” Tianna asked.
“What do you think?” Michelle sneered. “With you out of the game we’re going to win. No way La Brea can beat us then.” She turned and started to walk away.
“I hope you break an ankle,” Tianna shouted after her.
“Fat chance.” Michelle laughed, but then she tripped. She screamed and grabbed her ankle, then turned and looked back at Tianna accusingly. “You did that!”
“What?” Tianna asked, and spread her hands wide. “I was back here.”
“You did something.” Michelle searched the ground around her as if she were looking for the thing that had tripped her. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything.” Tianna felt terrible. She knew it was silly. A thought couldn’t make something happen, but she couldn’t squelch the guilty feeling that it was her fault Michelle had fallen.
CHAPTER SIX
THE REFEREE RAN back to them. “What happened now?”
“She tripped me,” Michelle squealed.
“How could I?” Tianna said. “I was sitting here the whole time. She’s ten feet away from me.”
The referee looked from one girl to the other. “She couldn’t have tripped you, Michelle; she hasn’t moved since I was here before.”
“But she did,” Michelle protested, her forehead twisted in pain, and when she protectively placed her hands around her ankle, she let out a small moan.
Vanessa came back and gave Tianna a towel. “What’s wrong?”
“Michelle fell and she thinks I did it.” Tianna pressed the towel against her nose. It was still bleeding badly.
“You’d both better go to the nurse,” the referee announced. “Tianna, can you help Michelle get there?”
“Yes,” Tianna answered, not bothering to hide her disappointment at being unable to finish the game.
“I don’t want her to touch me,” Michelle yelled.
“Michelle, she couldn’t have hurt you,” the referee said. “She was lying on the ground.”
Tianna stood, walked over to Michelle, and offered her a hand.
Michelle slapped it away. “Don’t touch me.”
“I’ll get someone.” Vanessa waved, and Derek and Michael ran onto the field. “Can you take Michelle to the school nurse?” she asked them.
“Sure,” Michael answered, and cast a quick glance at Tianna. “Awesome play.”
Derek and Michael locked their hands and carried Michelle to t
he nurse’s office between them. Tianna followed, holding back her head.
At the nurse’s office Derek lingered near the door. “You want me to stay?” he asked. “And give you a ride home?”
Tianna shook her head.
He gently moved the towel away from her face. “It doesn’t even look swollen.”
“But Michelle’s ankle is,” Michael said. “It looks really bad.”
The nurse suddenly appeared at the door. She was a short, fat woman with a cropped pixie cut and happy gray eyes behind purple frames that were too large for her face. “Thank you for your help,” she said. “Now, you boys go on so I can take care of the girls.”
Tianna mouthed good-bye and reluctantly followed the nurse inside her office.
A few minutes later Tianna sat on a stool under a buzzing fluorescent light, holding an ice pack to her nose as the nurse examined Michelle’s foot in the other room.
Tianna glanced idly around the nurse’s office and stopped at the desk. The nurse had left her computer on and open to confidential school files. Her eyes shot back to the door to the examining room. The nurse was still busy with Michelle.
Cautiously she set down the bag of ice and crept over to the computer. She grabbed the mouse and scrolled down through the health files marked CONFIDENTIAL until she came to the one for Tianna Moore.
Her heart beat rapidly when she read her own name. She opened the file, then studied the information on the screen. Born 1986 in Los Angeles, California. Normal immunization records and illnesses. The last line surprised her. Habitual runaway. Paranoid tendencies. Recommend counseling at Children’s Hospital.
Tianna read the last line again. Had she said something to the school nurse about being chased by strange men with glowing eyes?
Then she heard movement in the next room.
“I’ll be right back,” the nurse told Michelle. “I’m going to call your parents. You need to go to the hospital for X rays. I’m sure your ankle is broken.”
“No!” Michelle moaned. “I’m the goalkeeper. How’s my team going to play?”
Tianna had started to close down her file when something caught her attention. She saw her home address. She picked up a pen from the desk and hurriedly copied it onto her palm.
The nurse’s shoes squeaked on the polished linoleum floor, coming closer now.
Quickly she grabbed the mouse, closed down her file, and turned away from the computer.
The nurse entered the room and eyed Tianna suspiciously. “Was there something you needed?” she asked, and scanned her desk, then looked at the computer screen. Tianna hadn’t taken the screen back to where it had been before, but she hoped the nurse didn’t remember what had been there.
“I think I’m okay to go home now if that’s all right with you.” Tianna stepped away from the desk.
“Let’s see.” The nurse held either side of Tianna’s head with gentle hands and moved it from side to side, then pushed it up and looked inside her nose again.
“All right,” she said with an overworked smile. “But make sure you rest, or your nose will probably start bleeding again.”
Tianna headed for the door.
“Wait.” The nurse gave her four forms to take home and fill out and another one with instructions for her home care. “Read it carefully just in case.”
Then Michelle yelled from the other room, “Has everyone forgotten about me?”
“I’m calling now,” the nurse yelled back.
Outside in the hallway Tianna stared at the address written on her palm. That took care of one problem at least. She’d know how to get back to the apartment building. Maybe someone would be waiting for her, like a mom or a dad. Perhaps her parents had had to leave for work early this morning. It was comforting to think she wasn’t alone.
She had started walking quickly back to the gym to pick up her backpack and change into street clothes when another thought alarmed her. The guys with the yellow burning eyes could also be waiting for her. She slowed her step. She had a sudden impulse to run, but she didn’t know where to go.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE LATE-AFTERNOON sun cast orange light at a low angle and long black shadows swept across the street. Tianna stared at the house in front of her and compared its address to the one written on her palm. The address was correct, but this large brick Tudor home with its massive chimney and steeply pitched roof was definitely not the apartment building she had left earlier this morning. She wondered if this was where she lived. She studied the tall, narrow windows. Perhaps one belonged to her bedroom.
She couldn’t help but hope her parents were inside. Maybe they had been desperately looking for her. Her heart pounded crazily as she unzipped her backpack and pulled out the chain with the dangling keys. Did she have the right one to get inside? She glanced back at the dark house. More than anything she wanted to be home and feel the comfort of a parent’s arms around her.
She took a deep breath and hurried across the street, stepped up a short flight of stairs between two thick ornate iron banisters, then followed a brick path to the porch, where she skipped up the steps and rang the doorbell twice.
No one answered.
She hadn’t really expected anyone would. Her hands trembled badly, making the keys jingle like wind chimes as she stuck the first one in the lock. The looseness of the doorknob surprised her. She tried one key, then another. Finally a bronze one slipped in. She turned it and smiled when she heard the click.
She opened the door, stepped quickly inside, and called, “Mom! Dad!” trying to keep the tension out of her voice. She closed the door behind her and waited. The air smelled of lemon oil and rose blossoms. She wasn’t sure what she expected to hear, running footsteps, maybe, or the relieved yell of someone who loved her.
Finally she stepped across the tiled entry to the living room. Golden bars of sunshine shot through the windows and reflected off the polished wood floors and heavy, dark furniture. But the room felt too cold. In the overwhelming silence, the ticking of the clock seemed to echo around her.
Comfortable brown-and-gold chairs faced a huge stone fireplace. She turned around, looking for a picture of herself. Anything that would tell her she belonged here. She found nothing.
At last she went back to the hallway and found the stairs that curved up to the second floor. She took the steps two at a time, her backpack banging against her, and almost collided with a wheelchair on the landing. She touched the cold metal handles. It looked too small for an adult. Maybe she had a brother or a sister who had been seriously injured.
Then she glanced down the hallway. Three open doors spilled fading sunlight onto the hall runner. A fourth door at the end was closed. She tiptoed past a long table decorated with crystal vases. The house was deserted, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was there, watching her. She paused and listened before she entered the first room.
Inside the air was thick with disinfectant and medicine smells that seemed incongruous in a room with bright yellow-and-green wallpaper. Games and stuffed animals lay on a hospital bed in the corner. Syringes, pumps, and monitors sat on a long counter next to coloring books and crayons and a tattered game of Monopoly. This room must belong to the brother or sister who used the wheelchair.
She started to step back into the hallway but paused. Something was wrong. The air seemed to be growing colder and her body was filling with a sense of impending danger.
She eased inside the next room. Posters of skateboarders hung on the wall. She smiled. She touched the skates, bats, baseball gloves, knee pads, and helmets lining the shelves. On the desk she spied something that made her heart lurch; doctor’s instructions written on Children’s Hospital letterhead, and on top of that a long line of brown pill bottles. She picked up the first one and read the name: Shannon Culbertson. The last name was different from hers.
Maybe she didn’t belong here after all. She glanced at the address on her palm again, the letters and numbers now blurred. The school r
ecords said this was her home. Perhaps Shannon was her half sister, or the nurse’s records were outdated.
A loud creaking sound made her head jerk around. She waited and listened. Had someone opened a door downstairs? The big house was silent again. She hurried inside the third room and carefully closed the door. This one had to be hers. It definitely belonged to a teenage girl, but she didn’t like the decor. The full-size bed was covered with a flowery emerald comforter and lacy pillows, and she felt no sense of familiarity with the white furniture or the pink fabric flowers in the green vase. Was she really the type of girl who would have decorated her room like a flower garden? She didn’t think so.
Then she saw the computer. She set her backpack by the nightstand and pressed a button. The computer whined on. Maybe she could find something in the documents stored in the hard drive. She sat down at the desk and stared at the screen, then worked the mouse, but she didn’t find any files. There were no e-mails, and it looked as if she had never sent any out. Odd. She shut down the computer, then went to the closet and walked inside. She patted her hand along the wall, searching for a light switch, found it, and turned it on. Her breath caught.
“Wow,” she whispered. The clothes definitely looked like something she would wear. Scoop-neck tops and slinky skirts, hipster flare jeans and a leopard camisole. Even the shoes were perfect: Mary Janes with thick, chunky soles, bungee sneakers, and boots. She slipped off her leather jacket, tore off the tag on a fuzzy hooded sweater, and pulled it over her head. She liked the way the sleeves came down to the tips of her fingers. Automatically she poked her thumbs through the weave and smiled.
She stepped back into the bedroom. The tastes in clothes and bedroom decor were too different. She glanced back into the closet, then went to the laundry hamper and lifted the lid. It was empty. She scowled. The clothes looked new and unused. Most still had the sales tags hanging from the side. Even though she couldn’t remember her life before this morning, she knew there should be at least one pair of ratty sweats or some dirty clothes.